R v Edwin Hawe

Time spent on remand does not automatically count towards a community order. However, a community order contains punitive and rehabilitative restrictions, and a culpable breach may lead to further punishment. Where the defendant has already spent sufficient time in custody to satisfy the notional custodial sentence properly merited by the offences, it is wrong to impose further punitive, and in some cases rehabilitative, requirements. The court must assess the sentence that could properly have been imposed for the offences and compare it with the effective period already served in custody.

The applicant pleaded guilty to seven offences arising from abusive, controlling and violent conduct towards his former partner, including threats to kill, threatening communications, threats to damage property, and assaults. The Crown Court at St Albans imposed an 18-month community order with treatment, programme, rehabilitation and unpaid-work requirements, and made a five-year restraining order.

He sought an extension of time and leave to appeal his sentence. He contended that the sentencing judge had failed to account for the effective 14 months he had spent in custody on remand for these offences. The central issue was whether the community order exposed him to further punishment beyond the sentence that the offending could properly justify, while preserving punishment owed under an earlier community order that had been revoked and re-sentenced.

1. The extension of time was granted and the appeal was allowed. The 18-month community order was revoked. It was replaced by a 15-month community order with up to 15 rehabilitation activity days and 120 hours’ unpaid work, reflecting the earlier community order for separate offending.
2. Time on remand for an offence does not automatically count towards a community order. Nevertheless, a community order restricts an offender’s liberty through both punishment and rehabilitation, and culpable breach can expose the offender to further punishment. The court applied the principle in Lynch [2007] EWCA Crim 2624: it is wrong to impose a sentence creating that risk where punishment already experienced exceeds the punishment that the sentencing court would have imposed.
3. The correct inquiry was whether the notional custodial sentence properly available for the present offences could have exceeded the effective custody already served. The offending was serious. It was intended to intimidate and control the victim, formed part of escalating domestic abuse associated with drink and drugs, and followed previous breaches of court orders. A significant custodial sentence would therefore have been proper. However, it would not have exceeded the effective period already served on remand.
4. The court therefore accepted that the requirements imposed for the present offences could not stand. It did not simply extinguish the whole order because that would improperly erase the unpaid work and other consequences of the earlier, separate community order which the sentencing judge had revoked and re-sentenced. The substituted order preserved the punishment attributable to that earlier offending only.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2025] EWCA Crim 1101, the court granted an extension of time, allowed the sentence appeal, revoked the 18-month community order and substituted a 15-month order preserving requirements attributable to earlier offending.
• Crown Court at St Albans: On 11 September 2024, imposed an 18-month community order and a five-year restraining order for seven offences.
• Hatfield Magistrates’ Court: On 3 November 2023, accepted guilty pleas and committed the applicant to the Crown Court for sentence under section 4 of the Sentencing Act 2020.